“I think you better tell her everything,” Lia said.

Kyle nodded, his lips pursed. He turned his back to the computer and faced Maggie. “Beverly Clabber killed my wife.”

“But . . . I thought she died in a car accident.”

“She did. And Beverly Clabber was behind the wheel of the car that broadsided Sara.”

“Oh my God. What happened?”

“Mrs. Clabber ran a stop sign. She claimed it was because the rental car she was driving had an acceleration problem. Not only that, but she sued the rental company, which didn’t want the publicity of a lawsuit and settled with her out of court. So she actually made money off my wife’s death.”

“That is unbelievably horrible. But why did you follow her to Crozat? Actually, how did you even know she was staying with us?”

Kyle smiled grimly. “I wish I could say that I used my expert abilities as a computer programmer to ferret out that information, but Beverly, like a lot of seniors, has a passing interest in social media with no idea how to use it properly. She posted on a couple of sites where she hadn’t activated any privacy settings. She and Hal were supposed to spend their honeymoon visiting several Louisiana plantation B and Bs. When I saw Crozat was one of them, I had to come here. I wanted to confront her where Sara and I got married, to make her see and feel what she took from me. I wanted to show her that wedding picture on your wall, and then I was going to show her this.”

Kyle took a wallet out of his pants pocket. Maggie noticed that his hands were shaking slightly. He extracted a square of paper and handed it to her. She stared at the blurry black-and-white image.

“It’s a sonogram,” Kyle said. “Sara was two months pregnant. When I got the strength to go through her purse after the accident, I found it. She was going to surprise me.”

“Kyle, I feel for your loss—really I do—but you’ve been lying to us.”

“Not lying,” Lia said, jumping to his defense. “Call it a sin of omission. When Beverly was murdered, Kyle told me everything and swore he had nothing to do with her death. I asked him not to go to the police. Knowing Ru, he would have been all over Kyle and done nothing to find the real murderer.”

Maggie shrugged. “I’m not surprised Rufus never put you and Beverly together,” she said to Kyle, “but I am surprised Bo Durand didn’t find the connection.”

“She was using her original given name and the surname of one of her husbands, so anything on the Internet about the accident would have listed her as Fran Walker. She hadn’t married Hal Clabber yet.”

“Man, that woman had more husbands than an old-time movie star.”

“I also went on this jag where I cleaned the Internet of everything about the accident,” Kyle continued. “I couldn’t stand it out there, where anyone could read about it. I didn’t want to just wipe it from my memory, I wanted to wipe it from everyone’s memory.”

Maggie grimaced and rubbed her forehead. She turned to her cousin. “Can I talk to you in private?”

Maggie and Lia walked into the Fais Dough Dough storefront, where Maggie confronted her cousin. “How could you not tell me any of this?”

“I had to protect Kyle.”

“Who you’ve known for what, a week? How do you know he’s even telling the truth and not some psychopath? Because let me tell you, his behavior is kind of psychopath-y.”

“I just know, Maggie. The way we all know when we clear our minds like Gran’ taught us, to give space for the answer and let our instincts take over.”

“I’m beginning to see that there’s a big difference between intuition and wishful thinking.”

“I didn’t mean to hurt you or make things any harder on the family,” Lia said. She squeezed her hands together and held them in front of her as if begging Maggie to understand. “I didn’t know what else to do. I guess I just hoped that the police would find the real murderer, and no one would ever have to know anything about Kyle and his connection to Beverly Clabber. I was afraid if they heard about it, they’d stop looking for anyone else.”

Intellectually, Maggie understood Lia’s dilemma, but she still felt angry and betrayed by her. “Either Kyle goes to Bo and tells him everything, or I do,” she declared. “You may feel the need to protect Kyle, but I sure don’t. I feel terrible for his loss, but he is not my family, and I will not risk being accused of obstructing justice for him.”

Lia nodded. “I’d never expect you to do that. Now that you know his story, of course Kyle has to tell it to the police. God knows what Rufus will do when he finds out.”

“Yeah, well, your instincts were right about that,” Maggie said, softening a touch. “Rufus would have slapped the cuffs on him and thrown him in jail and said, ‘Case closed.’ He’ll probably do that now. But if you truly, truly believe he’s innocent, at least we have Bo to pursue other suspects behind Ru’s back.”

“Do you really think he’d do that for us?”

Lia looked so desperately hopeful that Maggie could only say yes and pray that she was right.

“Okay, then,” Lia said. “I’ll talk to Kyle.”

Lia turned out the store’s lights and the two women returned to the back room. Kyle was no longer at the computer. “Kyle?” Lia called. “Kyle?” But there was no answer.

Kyle was gone.

Chapter Twenty

“His car’s gone, too,” Maggie said, panting after a sprint to the parking lot and back.

“I know he didn’t run away,” Lia insisted. “That’s not who he is.”

“Agh!” Maggie groaned in frustration. “Again, Lia, a week. Seven days. If I could multiply seven times twenty-four in my head, I’d tell you how many hours. Okay, now I have to do that just to prove I can.” She closed her eyes and did the math. “A hundred and sixty-eight hours. Not much time to ‘know who he is.’ I’m calling Bo.” She took out her cell and dialed the police station. “Hi, Artie, it’s Maggie Crozat. I need to talk to Bo, it’s urgent . . . Thanks.”

Maggie paced while a prerecorded message from the PPD warned her never to leave a purse in the car or her home unlocked. She let out another groan of frustration when the phone went to Bo’s voicemail. “Great, he’s away from his desk.” She tapped her foot impatiently until she could leave a message. “Hey, it’s me, Maggie. You need to put out an APB or whatever you call them to stop Kyle Bruner. I have really important information for you. Lia and I are on our way over now.”

Maggie ended the call. “Close up the stores and come with me,” she told her cousin. Lia nodded and quickly locked up Fais Dough Dough and then did the same to Bon Bon. She turned off the lights as the two women headed out of the store. “We’ll take my car,” Maggie said. “We can make tracks in it. Thank you, Grand-père Crozat, for springing for the V8 engine.”

The two women jumped into the Falcon, Maggie gunned its engine, and they sped off to the Pelican police station. She pulled into the only spot available, hoping that the handicapped would forgive her, and then ran into the building, followed closely by Lia. Artie was on duty again, only this time his food companion was a bag of pork rinds.

“We have to see Bo,” Maggie told him.

“Sorry, but he’s interrogating a person of interest,” Artie said. “I believe it’s the guy you’ve been hanging with, Lia.”

“Kyle?” Lia ran to the front door, threw it open, scanned the parking lot, and pointed to a vehicle. “There. That’s his car. He turned himself in without us.” She turned to Maggie. “I told you I knew him,” she said, with a note of triumph that she instantly retreated from. “Wait, no, he’s just made himself a suspect.”

Lia collapsed on a metal bench. Maggie sat down next to Lia and hugged her. “Kyle knew what he had to do and did it,” she said. “He came here on his own. That says something about his character.”

“The police don’t care about character. They just want a suspect, and right now, Kyle is the only one they have. He’s doomed.”